The Other Us. Fiona Harper

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      Becca is too busy to come out from backstage before the performance, so I find a seat with a few of her drama friends that I remember being on a nodding basis with and I watch A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Becca is playing Titania.

      Afterwards, I go and wait outside the main entrance. The small studio theatre is used by both the drama and the dance department and doesn’t have anything as posh as a stage door. Most of the rest of the cast have appeared, been told in megaphone-loud voices how wonderful they were by their friends and have drifted off to the bar by the time Becca appears.

      She marches out, looking a little strange in her stonewashed jeans and hot-pink T-shirt but with her green-and-silver-glittery stage make-up still streaked across her face. She nods at me then sets off at a blistering pace down the narrow path that leads back towards the main buildings of the campus.

      ‘What’s up?’ I ask, trotting after her. ‘You were amazing! Best I’ve ever seen you do it! Don’t worry about that fluffed line in your first scene.’

      Becca stops, turns and looks at me. ‘You think I’m worried about missing a line?’ she asks, placing her hands on her hips. The stage make-up has the effect of making her look even more ticked off.

      ‘Aren’t you?’

      She shakes her head.

      ‘Unbelievable … So wrapped up in yourself you just don’t ever see!’

      ‘What?’ I say and my volume increases to match my level of confusion. ‘What don’t I see?’

      Becca pokes me in the hollow between the top of my right boob and my shoulder with an acid-green fingernail. ‘You don’t know what I’m talking about? What planet are you on?’

      I step back and rub the spot. It usually wouldn’t have been so bad, because Becca is a bit of a nail-biter, but she’s been adorned with long green plastic talons by the costume department. ‘Um … this one?’ I say tentatively. I’m getting that same reality’s-gone-screwy feeling I got when I first woke up here.

      ‘You broke up with Dan!’ she screams at me. ‘After he proposed, as well! What the hell’s wrong with you?’

      I blink.

      Oh.

      I didn’t know she knew. I also didn’t know she’d take it so personally. It’s not her who’s broken up with him, after all! I stiffen and stand up straighter. ‘Nothing’s wrong with me, actually. Nothing at all.’

      She throws her hands wide, shakes her head. My answer seems to have thrown her.

      ‘We’re not right for each other,’ I tell her, trying to keep my voice calm.

      She gives me another one of those looks that tells me she thinks I’ve had an aneurysm or something. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I’ve never seen two people more right for each other.’

      ‘Who told you?’

      She inhales deeply through her nose as she stares at me. ‘Dan. He’s a mess.’

      I feel a little kick of guilt down in my stomach, but I push it away. I’m being cruel to be kind, but I’m the only one who knows that. ‘He’ll thank me in the long run.’

      Becca laughs, but it’s not her usual bubbly giggle. ‘What? For breaking his heart?’

      I turn and start walking. ‘You’re just being dramatic now.’

      I’m halted by Becca grabbing my arm, wrenching my shoulder in my socket. ‘What’s wrong with you, Mags? You’ve been acting really weird the last couple of weeks! You’ve changed.’

      I pull my arm away from her and scowl. ‘How?’

      ‘You’re … you’re …’ She looks desperately at me, as if she really doesn’t want to let the next couple of words out of her mouth. ‘You’ve just started being really selfish.’

      I blink again. Selfish?

      Well, maybe it seems that way because I’m not being my usual doormat self – I’m not going along with what everybody else wants, letting life happen to me instead of taking it by the horns. I suppose if she wants to call that selfish then maybe I should let her. ‘You don’t understand.’

      ‘Then explain it to me.’

      For a moment, I actually consider this. Could I tell her? Could I tell her everything? But then I imagine the words coming out of my mouth and what her reaction will be. For all her wafting around like an unearthly being this evening, Becca is probably one of the most grounded people I know. She’ll just get even angrier with me, thinking I’m making fun of the situation. ‘I can’t.’

      Her expression hardens again. ‘Or won’t.’

      A sudden drop in my stomach alerts me to the fact that this is a crucial moment, that I have to handle it right. Dan and Becca are my anchors in this world, my only connections to the life I’ve left behind. I’ve cut one loose and I really don’t want to lose the other.

      ‘Remember that time we went to that gig at the Hammersmith Apollo,’ I say, ‘and we were a little bit tipsy, and we got on the bus and dozed off on each other?’

      Becca looks warily at me. ‘Yes?’

      ‘How we woke up and realised we were going the wrong way, that we needed to get off and change buses, or we’d end up in Islington instead of Putney?’

      She nods.

      ‘Well, that’s what I felt my life was like. The destination was fine and all that, but I had that same sudden shock in the pit of my stomach – I wasn’t going the way I was supposed to be going. I know it seems drastic and all, but I had to do something before it was too late.’

      I look at her, begging her to understand. She sighs and then we fall into step beside each other, making an unspoken decision to change direction and head for the bar. I know she’s confused and angry but I also know she’ll stand by me. She’s only being like this because she’s trying to protect me, trying to steer me down the path she thinks leads to happiness for me. Somehow, I’m just going to have to convince her that path doesn’t always lead to Dan.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      I creep into the flat. It’s gone eleven and the lights are off in the hallway. I start to tiptoe past the living-room door when I hear a voice.

      ‘So who is he, then?’

      I press my hand to my chest to stop my heart galloping right out of it. As I walk towards the slightly open door, I see blue light flickering on the walls. I push it open and find Becca inside, watching The Word with the sound turned right down, which, in my mind, is the only way to cope with it. I sit down beside Becca on the sofa and watch Terry Christian interview a scruffy-looking rocker whose name I can’t remember. ‘Who’s who?’

      I can feel her looking at me. ‘You know who. The guy … the new guy.’

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